8 Reasons Why The Fiestas Patrias Are Better Than July 4th

Good afternoon everyone! Thank you for taking time out of your busy, monotonous lives to live vicariously through your in-law/fellow American/landscaper who is busy studying the Spanish language in Chile.

The past week was a very important one for the country of Chile. Exactly one-hundred and ninety-nine years ago September 18th, the first independent government of Chile was formed. Every year, to mark the importance of this event, Chile celebrates the Fiestas Patrias. It's mandatory in Chile to partake in the Fiestas Patrias (if you don't everyone will think you're lame), and I discovered eight reasons why they are better than the United States' Independence Day:

1. Almost everyone in the country receives at least three consecutive days of national holiday. On July 4th, have you ever had the tough dilemma of choosing what to do and who to hang out with? In Chile, that problem rarely--if ever--happens since everyone has three free days and than the weekend. They also have more fun.

2. All the big cities have military parades. Due to some bad judgments I made the night before, I missed Concepción's military parade. However, I did get to see Santiago's parade on TV which had tanks, fighter planes, helicopters and people with guns. It beats a parade with floats full of little kids, classic cars containing waving senior citizens, and people handing out political stickers. Even the pansies who twirl sticks in front of everyone were cool--they carried pistols.

3. Their carnival games have prizes that you actually want to win. If I'm going to throw money away for the 0.1% chance of winning something, I want to win something cool. What would I do with a large, stuffed Winnie the Pooh? Carry it on my back? Look like I'm someone's dad? I'd much rather play a game where you can win something useful, like paper money or a bottle of hard alcohol. Fortunately, at carnivals in Chile you can win both! Sometimes they tape money to the bottle to create a rare double whammy. Unfortunately, when I played these games I didn't win anything, but it's the thought that counts.

4. Many universities have big parties to kick off the Fiestas Patrias. On Wednesday, our campus had a huge (around 5,000 people) party. How does an institute of higher learning celebrate the 18th? At about three o'clock in the afternoon, all the student organizations around campus begin selling drinks, spicy sausages and shish kabobs. Everyone eats and drinks, and later a band plays and everyone dances. It's even better than seeing the Johnny Holm band.

5. Everyone does this. It's called the cueca and it's the national dance of Chile. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvGURVqOmH0

6. They put U.S. barbecues to shame. I went to a Fiestas Patrias barbecue on Thursday night. Since I was coming from a carnival, I didn't get there until close to midnight--however, it was not a problem. The grill was fired up cooking steak, chicken and sausage; everyone knows meat is better when it's mixed with other meats. We ate it with nothing but our bare hands, just like meat should be eaten. The grill didn't stop until four in the morning, right after we made empanadas--which translates to Hot Pockets in English.

7. Chile has not just one, not two, but three special holiday drinks. They are a) ponche: tastes like sweet white wine, with peaches at the bottom, b) chicha: tastes like red flavored Kool-Aid, and c) terremoto: an exciting mix of wine, ice cream and coconut liqueur. It translates to earthquake, and has similar effects. All of them are really sweet and don't taste good, but they make up for it in other ways.

8. Since nobody has to work, everyone just stays up all night partying. I went to an afterparty at a bar (they call them "after's" here) and didn't leave until nine in the morning. Think of how many fights at 2:00 AM would be prevented if bars didn't close until 9:00 AM. Everyone would be too hungry for breakfast to fight.

The Fiestas Patrias are missing:

• Fireworks
• A movie about them where Will Smith kills aliens

Aside from that, in terms of sheer fun, the Fiestas Patrias are way better than almost every U.S. holiday, even President's Day.

Weekly American Clothing Item: a sweater that said, "No Wag At Iowa." Does anyone know what that means?

Thanks for reading, and as they say in Chile, "Make yourself go good."

It's a Riot

I've been in Chile for three weeks, and I'm still having trouble figuring out their sense of humor:

• A joke at a party had the punchline, "If I am polar bear, why am I cold?" The setup was completely irrelevant.
• At a recent host family gathering, my host uncle asked me (in Spanish), "How do you say open the door?" He did this while demonstrating how to open a door. I told him how to say "open the door" in English. He than asked me, "How do you say close the door?" He closed the door. Again, I translated. Than he said something I didn't comprehend, while opening the door halfway. I hesitated, than replied with my three favorite words in Spanish: "I don't understand." Everyone laughed after that. It was explained to me that I was the victim of a joke. This same thing has occurred twice now.
• I was conversing with my professor about Chilean beer. I told my professor that a certain beer, Escudo, is cheap. He laughed so hard that he did an 180-degree turn.

I don't get it either.

This past week has been an important one for Chile's national soccer team. They had two World Cup qualifying matches, one on Saturday and another yesterday. Down here--believe it or not--people actually watch soccer; even stranger, they enjoy it and sometimes pay for tickets to watch it live. The first time I heard this from a Chileno, I thought he was being sarcastic so I laughed loudly and gave him a few friendly pats on the back. You should have seen my face was when I found out he was serious!

Some friends and I decided to go to a couple bars to make sure they weren't confusing soccer with football. Much to my surprise, they were actually watching soccer--they even paid a cover to watch it! One bar's cover was that each patron had to buy two liters of beer. You're not going to believe this, but watching soccer here is actually a lot of fun. Everyone shouts crude words, chants slogans, and sings songs. I took part in a "son of bitch" chant in English, something I hope to do many times again in my life.

Unfortunately, not all of my time here is spent in bars. Sometimes, I have to go to class. The other day I was waylaid by a violent protest while walking to class. Apparently, riots are an annual occurence here every September. Students are unhappy about increases in tuition so they:

• Cover their faces with bandanas or facemasks.
• Start fires in the middle of the road.
• Throw rocks at a house.
• Break wood benches with big poles.
• Shout about high tuition.
• Throw paint on the ground.
• "Un-park" cars from their parking spots and move them into the road.
• Throw a small metal barricade violently on the ground, repeatedly.

It would be illegal for me to take part in any of these protests--foreigners are not allowed to protest anything here--so I just watched until the police sprayed tear gas everywhere. Than I left while holding my jacket in front of my face. Having tear gas in your face is not very fun; on a "degree of fun" chart, it's right next to wearing an uncomfortably small turtleneck or watching a Sheryl Crow music video. It feels like being allergic to mammals and rubbing a cat on your face. Sadly, because of the selfish, delinquent actions of these select few students who could not peacefully express their opinions, class was canceled for two days. It is very upsetting that a small group of hooligans can postpone the intellectual enlightenment of so many bright, assiduous students.

Now, what you've been waiting for--the bullet list:

• When I was riding in a cab to get home from classes, a guy walked up to the cab trying to sell individual band-aids. No one in the cab was bleeding at the time.
• During the same cab ride, a guy pulled up next to us at a stoplight. His stereo was blasting "Another One Bites the Dust" really loud.
• Two grown men rode one normal sized bike on a road by my house.
• Parental Control is on TV here, but I still have not seen Shaq Vs.
• A type of hot dog here is stuffed with sea food instead of mechanically separated beef, poultry and pork products. It really sucks.
• A bar here is called "The Beer Place."
• Girls wear fannypacks. Most of these girls are completely normal. Some of them are even cool.
• I went to an open-air market today (how interesting!) and saw probably over 500 kiwis on one table.
• A restaurant had menus in English with exotic dishes such as "chicken to the juice" and "hot big."
• A cabdriver shook my hand before letting me get out.
• Mullets are in fashion here. A lot of guys have jheri-curl mullets (like Lionel Ritchie), but I have seen some particularly galling dreadlock mullets.
• I registered my statys with the government the other day. The women registering me had me look directly at a bright flashlight for one minute.

I'm off to, as they say in Chile, "make a cow" with some friends. Hopefully, nobody "walks duck" tonight. Until next time, ciao!

I've Been Chillin'

What's up other hemisphere? My class was canceled today because another class had to use the room. So--as any good friend/grandpa/lover would do--I am going to use generously my free time to enlighten you about how frankly captivating my life in Chile is, and what I have been up to.

The other day, my group took a tour of the University of Concepcion, where I am enrolled in classes. It's huge and contains sculptures, flowers, murals, graffiti, a 700-year-old tree stump and a whale skeleton. The bathrooms don't have any tp (not many public bathrooms here do), but the vandalism is definitely above average--not only are there crude drawings and phone numbers to call "for a good time," but also thoughtful prose such as "Kosher Exudes Quality" and "Poor, uncultured youth were here."

My campus has a lot of really cool events. So far I have witnessed:

• a sexiness/inappropriate dancing contest
• tightrope walking
• "baby soccer" (like normal soccer, played on a small, concrete field)
• a game comprised of guys peeling oranges with their teeth, girls running with eggs on spoons, piggyback rides and more--all in less than five minutes. When it was over, the competitors engaged in a friendly game of Twister.

Unfortunately, I missed a small riot on campus the other day where disgruntled students threw paint on the ground and stones at the police to protest the rising cost of tuition, but I hope to see an upcoming somersault competition.

Just like people in the United States, Chilenos like to go out and have a good time on weekends. So, Friday night--in order to learn about the culture--I bought some hard liquor, went to a party, and later, to Club Knockout. I was hoping it would be a fight club, but than I remembered that no one talks about fight club. It was just a dance club--one where they play the music really loud and when people want to talk to you they shout into your ear in Spanish and you can't understand a damn thing.

Saturday Pepe and Kena took me to a bar--just like good host parents should. Two bands played some old time Latino music. Everyone sang and danced, even the old people who probably shouldn't have. It was a good time. Check the link at the bottom if you want hear some of the music.

Here's a bullet list of stuff I couldn't logically fit into the rest of my blog:

• Full-court basketball is played up to three when people are waiting to play. When you play half-court, you don't check up or keep score.
• A plate of fries comes with toothpicks stuck into it.
• You have to go to a store that only sells clocks to find an alarm clock. Otherwise, department store employees will just tell you it's upstairs. Then the employees upstairs will tell you it's downstairs.
• When you go to the bar, you buy a bottle of beer at a time. Usually it's a liter.
• A police officer approached me and my friend when we were walking to a store. He told us to wait for a couple minutes because there were some bad people walking in front of us and we shouldn't talk to them.
• If you order an ice cream cone, you get a full ice cream cone served upside down in a bowl of ice cream. It still tastes good.
• A lot of people here say, "call me if you need anything," whenever they speak in English. I want to take them up on that offer and ask them for a ride. I don't really enjoy using public transportation (does anyone?), although yesterday one guy came on the bus and spent three minutes trying to sell everyone pens.
• Favorite North American clothing apparel this week: Windbreaker with Dasani Logo.

Anyways, I'm going to try and post some pics of campus and me dancing on Sunday. Until than, as they say in Chile, "Good bye, fish!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCifdsXVOHU (The song Cantinero de Cuba, performed like it was at the bar!)